Consider this trivial application code:


    import java.security.*;

    public class KeyStoreTest {

        public static void main(final String[] args) throws Exception {
            final KeyStore ks = KeyStore.getInstance("PKCS12");
            System.out.println("Got keystore " + ks);
        }
    }

When compiled and run without any additional security properties as follows, it works fine:

    java KeyStoreTest
    Got keystore java.security.KeyStore@6b884d57

Now create a file "/tmp/app-security.properties" file with the following contents (it sets a security property)

jdk.security.provider.preferred=KeyStore.PKCS12:JipherJCE

and run that program as follows by passing "/tmp/app-security.properties" to -Djava.security.properties:

    java -Djava.security.properties=/tmp/app-security.properties KeyStoreTest

This time it throws a NullPointerException:

    Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke "java.security.Provider.getService(String, String)" because "p" is null
        at java.base/sun.security.jca.ProviderList.getService(ProviderList.java:376)
        at java.base/sun.security.jca.GetInstance.getInstance(GetInstance.java:157)
        at java.base/java.security.Security.getImpl(Security.java:658)
        at java.base/java.security.KeyStore.getInstance(KeyStore.java:870)
        at KeyStoreTest.main(KeyStoreTest.java:7)

I ran this on Java 22 but is applicable for lower Java versions too.